


lately it's been driving me mad

by okaystop



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Dates, First Meetings, Los Angeles, M/M, Meet-Cute, Scooters in LA, dog parks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-11-19 07:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18132707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaystop/pseuds/okaystop
Summary: He said nothing as he watched the guy pass him on his scooter. He had a smug grin on his face the whole time and Jon couldn't help himself as he raised an arm and flipped the scooter guy off.





	lately it's been driving me mad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tommyandthejons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommyandthejons/gifts).



> After a semi-deep-dive into your tumblr and fic loves and wants and ideas, tommyandthejons, I stumbled on [this post](https://tommyandthejons.tumblr.com/post/180249638412/i-have-never-admired-someone-more) and ran with it. I hope you enjoy this little AU meetcute treat.
> 
> Per the usual, please keep this secret, keep it safe. 
> 
> Title is from "I Want You Bad" by the Clarks.

Jon drummed his fingers against the steering wheel as he inched his car along Santa Monica Boulevard. 

He'd been making good time even just five minutes ago, when he'd passed some guy puttering along on an electric scooter. He'd visibly shaken his head and rolled his eyes about it as he sped past. He saw the appeal now, of course, no matter how dorky the guy had looked scootering down Santa Monica, neon yellow helmet glinted with sunlight, a backpack high up on his shoulders.

There must be an accident up ahead, Jon thought, pushing back against his seat and groaning. He was going to be late. He hated being late.

Jon glanced up into the rearview mirror, seeing a long line of cars tucked in behind his. In a few moments, someone would start honking and then the whole crowd of them would join the cacophony. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the guy on the scooter zooming up between the parking lane and line of traffic. "Oh for the love -" Jon hit the button to put the passenger side window down, prepared to make some kind of smartass comment as the scooter passed him by, but his tongue felt heavy and tied as he got closer and Jon got a good look.

He was hot. Not at all what Jon expected to see when he thought of a guy in Los Angeles on an electric scooter. Even with the unfortunate helmet, the guy was hot. 

He said nothing as he watched the guy pass him on his scooter. He had a smug grin on his face the whole time and Jon couldn't help himself as he raised an arm and flipped the scooter guy off.

Almost immediately, Jon felt bad, trying to shout a belated "sorry, I didn't mean -!" out the window, but traffic was stopped and the guy and his scooter had surged on ahead. 

He blinked, rubbed his eyes, wondered if he was going to be able to get the image out of his head, the tight maroon pants that hugged his thighs, the black t-shirt that fit snugly, the crinkle of his eyes, the superior smirk, the - everything, really.

Jon startled as the car behind him blared its horn, and he realized the traffic had started moving again, and Jon hit the gas, shaking his head at himself.

 

"Maybe you should put up one of those Craigslist missed connections," Tommy suggested, leaning against the counter and taking a swig of his beer. 

Jon rubbed the bridge of his nose and poked a chip into the salsa just because it was in front of him. "Do people actually look at those?" he asked, because for whatever reason he didn't immediately dismiss the idea. "I mean, besides the weirdos who go on craigslist and look at everything anyway."

Tommy shrugged. "I don't know but why not try it? 'You scootered by me while I sat in traffic and I flipped you off and I really want to apologize but also I can't stop thinking about getting into your tight red pants.'" He laughed at himself as Jon gave him an exasperated look.

"Absolutely not," Jon groaned. "I just - need to stop thinking about him."

Tommy snorted around his beer bottle. "Right, like that's going to happen. I've known you forever and when you get something stuck in your head like that, you can't let it go. Hey - what if you ask twitter for help?"

"How's that any different than craigslist?"

"Wider net to cast," Tommy said. "Maybe not as desperate-sounding." He put his bottle down heavily on the counter and swiped his phone on. "Here, I'll do it for you." He started typing something out before Jon could argue. "Done." He held his phone out for Jon to read.

The tweet read: _People of LA, know anyone who rides an electric scooter on the reg? My buddy @jonfavs is thinking of changing his method of transport and is too embarrassed to ask himself._

"Tommy," Jon whined, his face hot. "That's - ugh." He dropped his head to the countertop, shoulders rolled forward. At least, he thought, it didn't explicitly recall the incident it was about.

"Hey, if it works, it works and you can thank me by making me best man at your wedding to 'Scooter Guy.'"

He wiped his face and bit his tongue in an effort not to ask Tommy to refresh his mentions already to see if he had any leads. Not that he expected any leads. In fact, he didn't expect anything to come of this at all, but that didn't mean he wasn't - hopeful. Or cautiously optimistic. Or - he just groaned again.

Tommy slapped his back and reached around him to dunk a chip into the salsa. "Come on, game's on. Take your mind off it. We'll check my phone in a half hour."

Jon dragged himself, the bowls of chips and salsa, and his beer to the couch, but he didn't last a half hour before asking Tommy to check Twitter. He barely lasted ten minutes, what with all notifications his own phone was vibrating with. "Well?"

"Give me a sec to scroll, Jon, shit. Don't seem so desperate." But Tommy gave him a fond look anyway as he poked around on his phone, his face too stoic for Jon, who leaned his neck back against the back of the couch and covered his eyes with his palm. "Oh this looks promising."

Jon reached for the phone, took it without asking. Someone who didn't matter replied to Tommy with "cc @jonlovett" and one of that guy's tweets, which read, _One fun part of riding a scooter around LA is a driver will give you the finger when you're scootering past him and he's sitting in traffic._

"Well?" Tommy asked.

Jon clicked through to look at the guy's profile, his photo, some of the other photos, the last few days' worth of tweets, before he looked at Tommy with what he knew must be some kind of goofy grin on his face. "Yeah, that's - him," he said. He didn't want to give the phone back to Tommy, but he relinquished it anyway.

"Cool," Tommy said, and suddenly he was typing away, nodding to himself. "All right. We're all set. Now we wait again."

Jon's cheeks heated. "Wait, what did you do?" In his back pocket, his phone vibrated with a new mention and he tugged it out quickly, heart thumping. "Tom, if you -"

"Relax, it's not a big deal." Tommy tossed his phone aside, grinning, then went back to watching the game. 

This is what Tommy tweeted in reply: _@jonlovett, any chance the dude who flipped you off was driving a silver Prius? If so, haaaaaave you met @jonfavs? He wants to apologize and take you out for a drink._

"Oh my god, Tommy," Jon said. He tried very hard not to look at his phone again for the rest of the evening.

 

"I can't believe you aren't even going to reply," Spencer said, leaning away from Lovett in that way he did while in the midst of a particularly tense moment of gaming. 

Lovett laughed sharply. "Why would I? He's an asshole who flipped me off and then went full throttle middle school and got his bro to apologize to me on Twitter. Come on, Spencer, really, do you even know me?"

"I know you think he's hot," he said. "Isn't that enough?"

Lovett rolled his eyes and huffed, hit pause in the game. "First of all, I have tried very hard to stop getting crushes on straight boys, and second of all -"

"You don't know that he's straight."

Lovett pushed his game controller to the side. "Did you even look at his twitter feed? Read his wiki page?" He cut Spencer off before he could show surprise at this other Jon having his own wikipedia page. "He's an Obama bro. He was the President's speechwriter. He literally did the job I was gonna have with Hillary." 

"That doesn't make him straight -" 

Lovett fumbled with his phone and poked around on it then waved a blurry photo in Spencer's face. "He dated Rashida Jones! From Parks and Rec!"

Spencer sighed and reached for his drink. "Okay fine. You win." Lovett always did, really. "It couldn't hurt to just accept the free drink. Meet someone new. Maybe even have someone else to talk politics with who isn't me or Twitter at large."

Lovett threw him a look and opened his mouth to argue but then snapped it closed. He bent down to pick up his controller again and shifted to put his feet under himself. "I'll think about it," he said, after a long moment. 

"Good for you, Jon," Spencer said.

He nearly growled before unpausing the game and turning his frustration onto Spencer, effectively ending their in-game alliance and forcing them to start all over again.

 

It was a week after the scooter and flipping off and asking out on Twitter (well, _kind of_ ) incident and there was no reply from @jonlovett. Jon tried not to take it personally, but he also couldn't turn his brain off of thinking about it. He couldn't go back in time and change the way everything played out, so the best thing he could do was move forward. Los Angeles was a big city, and the chances of Jon running into this other Jon again were slim to none.

Which is exactly why it happened on a Saturday morning at the dog park.

Jon let Leo off his leash and nudged him to take off into the park, stepping back to turn around and find a bench to sit on and scroll through Twitter on for a while. He nearly tripped over a dog that looked a lot like Leo, just smaller and less shaggy. He stutter-stepped around to avoid traipsing on a tail. "Sorry," he muttered. To the dog? He didn't know. 

"Oh are you now? For what, exactly? Making fun of my scooter, flipping me off, or for almost stepping on my dog?"

In a split second, Jon found himself face-to-face with Jon Lovett. "Uh -" He looked down, squatted down to rub Lovett's dog behind the ears, finding comfort in how similar she was to Leo. What were the chances that they had matching goldendoodles? "All of the above, though I should be clear," Jon said, glancing up at Lovett even as he gave attention to the dog. The dog gave a bark and then took off toward Leo, and Jon, still crouched down, turned to watch as the two dogs sniffed each other then began tumbling around. He stood up, brushing his palms off on his thighs. "I never made fun of your scooter."

Lovett shrugged with one shoulder and half-snorted. "Semantics." He had his hands shoved deep into his jeans pockets - black jeans that were snug in all the right places, Jon noticed, even though he tried not to notice.

"I'm Jon," Jon said, sticking out his hand. "Favreau. Not the director."

"No, the speechwriter. I know. I googled you." Lovett took his hand after a moment's hesitation. "Jon Lovett. But you know that. You had your bro tweet at me like we're in middle school. Look, no apology necessary. I've had worse done to me out of the window of a car when I'm on my scooter. One asshole threw his Big Gulp at me."

"What? Seriously?" Jon didn't know what to do except gape at him.

He shrugged again. "Yeah, he probably wasn't even local. Who around here drinks Big Gulps? Like I said, don't think you need to apologize or whatever. It's fine."

"Can I still buy you a drink?" Jon asked, pretty much the instant Lovett finished talking. He listed forward a little, maybe into Lovett's space, hopeful.

Lovett looked at him, unable to hide his surprise. "Uh - why?"

"I want to?" Jon said, hating that it came out like a question. He cleared his throat, stepped back a smidge. "I mean, look - I realize that it was pretty ridiculous to have Tommy tweet at you like that, but in my defense, he kind of did it without my permission. I just -" He regrouped himself, scratched a hand back through his hair. "You probably have a boyfriend, anyway," he muttered.

"Are you asking me out on a _date_?" Lovett blurted out.

Jon blinked at him. "Yes. What - yes, I am. Sorry, that was obviously not very clear at all." When had he gotten to the point in his semi-advanced age that he was no longer good at this, at picking up, at flirting. It used to come so naturally, never wanting for hook-ups or whatever else back in D.C. He thought about blaming Los Angeles, the sun getting to his head, the overwhelming amount of hot people with fit bodies, intimidating. 

Lovett was hot. And intimidating too.

Lovett looked at Jon with a puzzled expression, and Jon felt his cheeks, the sides of his neck, grow hot. "Will you judge me if I order something brightly colored and disgustingly sweet?" he asked.

"No," Jon said quickly, shaking his head. "I've been known to order a scorpion bowl or two," he admitted.

Lovett pulled a face. "Gross. But yeah, all right. Yes or whatever, to your question. You can buy me a drink, on a date. We're going to Hamburger Mary's, though, no arguing. I want some Mary Tyler S'mores since you're buying. Excellent first date fare."

Jon hoped he didn't look too smitten as he watched Lovett talk with his entire body, as he agreed to everything Lovett was saying because he didn't want to miss this opportunity.

 

Lovett wasn't intending to possibly self-sabotage this date, truly he wasn't. It was just - he couldn't help himself. 

He recognized he was doing it midway through their dinner, when he realized that despite his best efforts to make the date difficult, Jon was having a good time. A great time, even, if the way he laughed at Lovett's jokes with his whole body, exposing the delectable line of his throat as he threw his head back, said anything. Or the fact that when Lovett ordered an obnoxious drink so pink it practically glowed, Jon ordered, with a straight face and maybe a little big of a challenging glance at Lovett, something called a 'Screaming Orgasm." Also, he didn't flinch when Lovett's burger showed up and it was practically bigger than his head.

Their conversation flowed more easily once their respective drinks were emptier, naturally. Lovett preened, appreciating the way he could make Jon laugh so easily. He enjoyed the attention, even if he was hogging it. It occurred to him when their dessert arrived - the afore-promised flaming s'mores to share - that he had barely asked Jon anything about himself.

Lovett held his marshmallow over the open flame and glanced over at Jon, who was looking right back at him, a smile curling up his lips. "So - uh - this is good. Nice. I'm having fun," he said. "Having a good time."

"I am, too," Jon said. He cleared his throat and picked up his drink, averting his gaze for a moment.

Lovett smiled right back. "I googled you, so I know about the whole President's mindreader and amazing speechwriter stuff, but what are you doing now that you're not in the White House anymore?"

Jon sat back a little and shrugged. "Mostly consulting with Tommy - Vietor, he -"

"Said 'dude' on FOX News, I know, about Benghazi. National Security Council, etc." Lovett paused to blow out the fire his marshmallow was engulfed in. "You know, I - worked for Hillary during the 2008 campaign. Your job, actually. So I know a lot more than people might think about that whole thing, even if I never got to work in the White House."

Jon's eyes narrowed a little bit, thoughtfully. "I knew your name sounded familiar," he said quietly. "You didn't go back and work on the 2016 campaign?"

"God, no," Lovett said, focusing on stacking up his s'more and then licking the sticky bits of charred marshmallow off the sides of his fingers. "I got out of politics and haven't looked back." Even if it was harder in the last few years since Trump was elected.

"Sometimes I think I should be doing something," Jon said casually. "Besides what I am doing, I mean. But then I look at the sorry state of our country and government today -"

"- the Dumpster fire that is the Trump administration? -"

Jon nodded, continuing on above the cut-in. "And I think, fuck if I know what can be done to save democracy. If I had the answer to that, we certainly wouldn't be trapped in this hell anymore."

Lovett laughed. "Yeah, I know the feeling." He looked down at his s'more and at Jon's empty glass and empty hands, then held it out in offering to him. "Here, you have the first one," he said, licking his lips. "I made it just for you."

Jon shook his head but took it anyway. "Really? Because I'm pretty sure you aren't really the sharing type."

"Shut up," Lovett said, but he was smiling as he got started on a second s'more, one he was going to eat all on his own. Right after he enjoyed the sight of Jon licking chocolate and marshmallow off his own lips and fingertips.

 

They went their separate ways after the date, and Jon regretted not kissing Lovett the moment he got into his Lyft and closed the door. He watched Lovett's Lyft pull away and then spent the rest of the ride watching out the window in an effort to stop thinking about how he should have asked Lovett back to his place. 

As the car slowed and pulled up to the curb in front of Jon's house, he sighed. He climbed out, racing a hand back through his hair, thanking the driver. 

"Hey," he heard from across the street, and he looked up, blinking, to find Lovett on the curb, rocking on the balls of his feet. "Stalker. What are you doing here?"

"What? I don't - I'm going home?"

"Uh huh," Lovett said, brow furrowing. 

Jon didn't know what to say, not really, so he just did what he wanted to do before, what he should have done before. "Do you - want to come in?" he asked, ignoring all the questions he had about how they ended up on the same street, like this, right now.

Lovett blinked at him. "Isn't that my line?" he asked, gesturing vaguely behind him as he fished his keys out of his pocket. "Considering you followed me home?"

It took Jon another moment, maybe because that third drink had gone straight to his head, to figure out what was going on. "You live here," he said, dumbly. "I live there." He pointed behind him at his house, which was diagonal across the street from the house that Lovett had motioned vaguely to before. 

"Seriously?" Lovett laughed. "What a small fucking world we live in. Let me let Pundit out and then I'll come over. Have a drink waiting for me." He trudged up the walk to his front door, leaving Jon staring after him for a moment before he remembered to go inside his own place.

Jon left the front door unlocked as he called for Leo and let him out the back door. What a small world they lived in, like Lovett said. He shook his head and toed off his shoes, hung his jacket over the back of one of the dining room chairs. He looked around, glad that he was usually fairly tidy, that there was nothing out to be embarrassed about when Lovett came over. 

(He couldn't believe Lovett was going to come over.)

His fridge was mostly empty, but he found two beers that weren't horrible and set them out on the counter, popping the caps off. He took a swig and looked around for something to do that wasn't staring at the front door waiting for Lovett to knock.

Lovett knocked at the front door a few minutes later.

"It's open," Jon called out from the couch, where he held his beer in both hands and looked up expectantly as Lovett came in.

"I could have been anyone," he said, removing his own shoes and closing the door behind him. "What if I'd been some serial killer waiting in the bushes for the right moment to pounce?"

"But you aren't," Jon said simply. He didn't hide the fact that he was watching Lovett, enjoying the way his shirt rode up a little, revealing the pale skin of his stomach, his sides, as he reached for the beer Jon had left waiting for him. Or the fact that Lovett made himself right at home without his shoes, crossing over to where Jon sat on the couch.

He looked up at him, reached out to unfold a hand against his waist, urged him to step closer. "Hey," Jon said.

Lovett swallowed down some beer, his throat working, and then set the bottle on the coffee table. "Hey." He leaned down, putting his knees on either side of Jon on the couch, and sank onto his lap, their mouths meeting in urgent, wet kisses.

Jon pushed his hand up around the back of Lovett's neck, his fingers tugging at his hair. Lovett responded in kind by pressing himself in against Jon, his ass burrowed down against Jon's thighs, his thighs, knees, tight against Jon. They fought for control of the kiss, all tongues and teeth, until Lovett pulled back, breathless.

"Fuck," he said, voice hoarse. "Pretty convenient, you living just across the street," he said. His mouth found its way to Jon's jaw, down the side of his throat as he bared it for him. "Gonna just come over anytime, let myself in and do - this - you - everything. Anything."

Jon tried to laugh but it was breathless and he didn't want Lovett to stop what he was doing with his teeth against the side of his Adam's apple. "Who's the stalker now?" he asked, tugging Lovett's mouth back up to his without waiting for an answer.


End file.
